Firefly and Lovecraft Protagonists by Tenebrae

GENERAL DISCUSSIONS

Firefly and Lovecraft Protagonists

POSTED BY: TENEBRAE
UPDATED: Tuesday, April 6, 2004 10:22
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Friday, April 2, 2004 10:23 PM

Ok, I wrote this in another thread, another place but it echoed pretty true about Firefly protagonist so I couldn't hlp but post it:

.....snip
Ok, Ok, back to where I was talking, the hopelessness of it. Maybe isn't the fight itself hope? Doesn't the fact of the struggle give the struggle itself meaning? Win or loose, our flawed protagonists will do what they can. That seems to be meaning enough in itself, whether or not the win through, they fought.
.......snip

There is (and I thought this before the DVD so back the frell off) an existential struggle going on with Our Heroes. A group of people (with the possible excepition of Kaylee and Jayne) rebuilding something after loosing everything.

I'm sure everyone has hit it, but self-definition I think is the underlying theme of all of Firefly.

But why?

Definition and redefinition seem to be something of and underly theme in all of the Jossiverse but in Firefly it really comes up front.

Again why?

Here is my humble assertion, because in the 'verse of Firefly there isn't a demon or vampire or anything in sight. All you see are the works and quirks of man. I imagine that is why Joss was against aliens. He wanted a moving human drama. But Whedon being Whedon, he couldn't do a cop show in gritty modern day Cleveland.

So we get space cargo holds and cows.

Anyway back to Lovecraft. All H.P. protagonists are faced with insurmountable odds. Birth, inheritance, whatever. Whatever places them in dire odds. Most (but not all) Lovecraft protagonists fall to madness or, well, being eaten or put in a jar. But not all, there are some stoic remnants that try to discourage others from going where they went (think 'Mountains of Madness' and you'l find one, 'Walls of Eryx' find another).

Mal is right there. He went to some dark works of the heart and knows right what he is talking about when he warns people away. Not just physically bust psychologically. He's been to badtown upstairs.

Mal would have done ok at Innsmouth.

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Sunday, April 4, 2004 3:36 PM

PALADIN

I think you've got a good point.

Big fan of Lovecraft. There was this one time about a month ago when my friend and I tested whether or not you really could find a copy of the Necronomicon in a college library. Sure enough, on the restricted section of the fourth floor there it was. Of course, "IT" was actually a collection of art by H.R. Giger (the guy who designed the alien from Alien). It might as well have been the book from Lovecraft's stories.

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"If you take sexual advantage of her, you're going to burn in a very special level of Hell, a level they reserve for child molesters and people who talk at the theater." -Book

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Monday, April 5, 2004 1:55 PM

LUCIFERASE

Hmmm.The thought of Captain Mal all squamous and exophthalmic is a bit creepifying.

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Tuesday, April 6, 2004 6:14 AM

KOZURE

"Now think real hard. You been slime-slogging this miscegenated seaport coastal town a while now. They wouldn't mind a sacrifice of you. Now you can luxuriate in a degenerate, worm-infested, crumbling house, but if your tentacle touches metal, I swear by the three-lobed burning eye, I will end you."

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Tuesday, April 6, 2004 6:22 AM

SHINY

Quote:
Originally posted by Kozure:
"Now think real hard. You been slime-slogging this miscegenated seaport coastal town a while now. They wouldn't mind a sacrifice of you. Now you can luxuriate in a degenerate, worm-infested, crumbling house, but if your tentacle touches metal, I swear by the three-lobed burning eye, I will end you."

ROTFLMGAO!!!!

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Tuesday, April 6, 2004 6:26 AM

FIVEBYFIVE

OMG that is funny.
Although I don't know how Mal would fare in a journey through the sepulchral darkness and Cyclopean architecture of an unnameable, unknown void of despair. (Heh.)

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Tuesday, April 6, 2004 7:01 AM

SOUTHERNMERC

Easy, he'd shoot it.

Or get Jayne or Zoe to shoot it, he's not picky.

Jayne: "How big a room?"

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Tuesday, April 6, 2004 10:22 AM

GHOULMAN

Quote:
Originally posted by Luciferase:
Hmmm.The thought of Captain Mal all squamous and exophthalmic is a bit creepifying.

Bwaaahahahaha!

Nice catch regarding the 'exitential hopelessness' of H.P. Lovecraft characters and Firefly crew. Though: the Lovecraft characters were more about falling unwillingly, or by deceptive desire, to thier doom or were sub-human (which is all the non-white people for H.P. Lovecraft, he was an anglofile). The heros were comming from a 'normal' world to a 'chaotic' one. The Firefly characters sorta come from chaoes (the War) to normal (Mals creation of a home - Serenity). The plots are different but the same emotions are present.

I can see similarities certainly. Lovecraft once stated his stories were about a cosmos that didn't care, or was even aware of, the human race. I can see Mal would share the idea of a godless, uncareing, violent, 'verse.

May great Cthulhu never roll over onto your side of the bed.

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